Through the Looking Glass
by warwick-witch
Summary: "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?" I remember when you first asked me that question. Well, you weren't asking me, really. You should have seen the look on your face when you realized I was there.
1. I

**Author's note:** I started writing this while I was trying to write something completely different. I thought this would be a one-shot but it seems that the story has other plans. And I'd hate to argue with it and keep it from developing. I hope you'll enjoy reading this and that you'll come back here to read the next chapter (or chapters).

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Once Upon a Time _or its characters. I am only doing this for fun.

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><p><span>Through the Looking Glass<span>

**I**

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?"

I remember when you first asked me that question. Well, you weren't asking me, really. You should have seen the look on your face when you realized I was there. You got on your feet and knocked some things off the desk. For a second I thought you would throw your hairbrush at me – you were still holding it in your hand – but you didn't. You would frequently throw various objects at me later on, vases, hairpins, your tiara, and they couldn't hurt me but I didn't know back then. I closed my eyes and waited to be broken into a thousand and one pieces. _Don't you know breaking a mirror brings seven years of bad luck_? I thought.

When I dared to look outside again, you were standing a few steps away from me and I could see you whole. You ran your fingers through your hair, it was still tangled from when you were asleep. Later I learned it was one of those little things that you did when you felt that things were beginning to get out of control. You were dressed in black, of course, the king was dead. For a long time I was convinced that you wore black because you wanted everyone to believe you were truly bereft but it just happened to be your favorite color. I don't know why you insist on wearing it all the time but I stopped trying to convince you to wear something else a long time ago. You know what you want, you say. You're just one of those people who think that they're the only ones who know what's good for them.

You crossed your arms on your chest and smiled, slightly tilting your head to the side. Then you started walking in my direction rocking your hips. As a cobra senses its prey's warmth, you had sensed my fear and although I was completely still, it was too late for me to save myself. You had poisoned me when I first saw you at the feast and the venom had been in my blood for too long now. I don't even think my heart remembered what blood was like anymore, it seemed to me that for as long as I could remember, it was you who filled my body with life. You used me and I should have known better but a part of me didn't mind at all. You'd find it hard to hate someone for using you if you'd been a genie of the lamp for as long as I had.

You see, all my life I would grant other people's wishes. There was always somebody who made all the decisions for me. I wasn't used to questioning people's choices. I wouldn't have been a very good genie if I had_._ I like to think that the reason why we get along so well (although you'd never admit it) is that, unlike you, I don't mind it when someone knows better. Even if they're terribly wrong.

You came really close to me and all I could see was your face. You were smiling but there was something disturbing about your smile. You touched the glass surface with your fingers and after a while you leaned even closer because you wanted to see what was on the other side. I stepped aside to let you look, although I wasn't sure whether you'd be able to see anything at all. I never asked you but I think you could only see yourself. I think mirrors are the same as magic lamps and you can't see what's inside unless you're in there.

"Forgive me for scaring you," I said when you moved away from the mirror and sat down.

"Scaring me? Please, you can't possibly think that a pathetic little thing such as yourself would frighten me? You might have done some silly wish granting in the past but the magic I possess is much more powerful than you can imagine. A childish magic trick such as this doesn't frighten me."

"You seemed pretty frightened to me a moment ago."

"I was merely surprised. I don't usually expect visitors this early in the morning, especially not in my private chambers."

"I didn't think you could see me," I confessed. "I couldn't help myself..."

"Spying on me in my own bedroom? My, my, are all genies this rude or is it just you?"

Before I had the chance to say something, you snapped your fingers and suddenly everything was dark. At first I thought that the darkness came from a spell you used to break the mirror and for the second time that morning I hid behind the frame, closed my eyes and prepared myself to be shattered.

When I didn't hear the sound of broken glass, I carefully looked outside again, this time making sure that I was safely covered by the frame. I could see the ceiling. I heard your footsteps and then the images before my eyes turned into a shapeless smear as my prison shook and moved up really quickly, making me fall on the ground. I remembered experiencing the exact same sensation every time someone would pick my lamp up.

I slowly got up and saw your face again. It was taking up the whole of my vision and I concluded that I must be in a smaller mirror now. You were trying to brush your hair again but it wasn't easy with just one hand. You moved the mirror away from your face because you wanted to see yourself from a different angle and that allowed me to look around a little bit. I still wasn't able to see much but I did spot the mirror hanging at the opposite wall of the room, covered with a black sheet. I wanted to see something more and I made the mistake of leaning from behind the frame a little too much…

"How dare you!" you exclaimed and tossed the mirror on the desk face down. That one did actually break but I was already somewhere else by then. Apparently, I could move freely between any mirror in the palace and, as I later discovered, in the land. Clearly, you must have realized that as well because I didn't see you for quite some time afterwards.

I knew it wouldn't take you long to feel the need to look at yourself again. Over time I learned to appreciate your vanity because it gave me the chance to look at you. I know you believe that the only person worth loving and the only person who can ever love you is yourself but sometimes I like to think that it would upset you if one day you didn't see me in the mirror. You would never admit it, of course, but I think you'd miss me.


	2. II

**II**

"You, my queen, are fairest of all."

It's our good morning and good night. Our hello, how was your day?

You don't realize this but every time I say it, I grant you your wish. When you look at me, waiting for me to say it, there is something in your eyes that makes me feel like I was a genie again. Every time it feels like hearing the third request the master of the lamp makes: it's relief, sadness and excitement all at once.

Relief, because I know that this is ought to be the most spectacular moment that will bring the grandest magic (your smile) and that afterwards I won't have to go out of my way to make an even bigger impression than before.

Sadness, because the third wish is the last and later the genie's services are no longer required (your interest in what I have to say declines from that moment on).

Excitement, because after one master comes another and the wish making starts again before you know it (I love waiting to see the spark in your eyes in between our good morning and good night).

When you look in the mirror, you see what you want to see in yourself and not what the others might see in you, and you really like that. You would never admit this but it hurts you greatly to know how much they don't appreciate you. I do. But that's because I've had the chance to look closely at you from many different mirrors and see you whole.

I've seen you in your best dresses and finest jewelry. Over time, I've seen you do your hair in countless different ways and each one was more beautiful than the one before. Your lips are always red and your eyebrows from two perfect arches over your proud dark eyes.

I like you best in the first moments of the morning, with your hair tangled and your eyes sparkling from what you saw in your dreams. In these brief moments you're not queen yet and you don't have to come up to anybody's expectations, not even your own. Sometimes I wish you would let other people see you like this but other times I'm overtaken by jealousy at the very thought of anybody else looking at you and seeing you the way you are before you remember that you have a kingdom to rule and spells to cast.

Your world, the world outside my prison, that is, is cold and flat, like glass. No matter how big a mirror, it can only reflect a small fraction of whatever it is facing. The frame holds the glass in place, and there can also be a nail that keeps the whole mirror on the wall but frames wear out and rot, and nails rust. And before you know it, the mirror hits the floor and shatters into a thousand and one tiny little pieces. Usually, you then replace it with a better one, with a new frame and you make sure the nail is driven far enough in the wall. You have the mirror made from better materials, of course, and you have the frame impregnated. Although most likely you want to take care of it yourself, since whoever was tending to the previous one didn't do their job properly and cost you seven years of bad luck.

"Why not unhappiness?"

"What do you mean, my queen?"

"Why does breaking a mirror bring seven years of bad luck? Why can't it be unhappiness?"

"I think that would stop anybody from ever buying a mirror. Luck is a tricky thing, it comes and goes and there are many things which you can use to bring it back if it leaves. Happiness, on the other hand… it takes much more than a finding a four-leaf clover to have it. Don't you find the very thought that something can take away a man's happiness terrible, your highness? I don't think that anyone who's ever been happy would like to see another person's happiness taken away from them."

"Are you saying you're happy?"

"Yes."

Only, this isn't you wanting to know whether I'm happy

This is you trying to tell me that you're not.


	3. III

_It's been a while since I first started this story and a lot of things changed, especially since I began writing this even before the end of Season 1. I hope I've managed to incorporate at least some of the new elements into this chapter and that it still makes sense alongside the whole series. As usual, it went into a direction I hadn't considered before but I think it works pretty well. I had fun writing this and I hope the same can be said about reading it._

**III**

"Snow White is the fairest of them all."

You never said it out loud but I saw it in your eyes that day. You were getting ready to come down to dinner and your stepdaughter came to fetch you. She walked up to you and asked you when you'd be ready. You told her you only needed a minute or two and turned back to your reflection in the mirror. One look at the girl's reflection drained the color from your face. She was busy arranging the folds of your dress in the most innocent, loving gesture and paid no attention to the mirror at all.

You let her finish, and you even caressed her hair with your hand, while your eyes flashed with lightning and your lips formed a thin, almost invisible line. You blinked, as if hit by some kind of momentary pain – and if I'd asked you then if you were hurt, you would've told me to go to hell – as if I wasn't in hell already – but I knew that look and didn't have to ask you.

I never knew why you let people think you hated Snow White because she was more beautiful than you. I tried to reason with you about that every time I had the chance; I must say that the only reason I even dared to imply that you were wrong to do so was because I knew that no matter how much you tried you couldn't make me suffer any worse than I already was.

"You don't know anything," you'd spat and turn your back at me. "You don't know anything, you don't understand."

But I did, just because you had decided that no one understood you didn't mean no one did. You didn't make it any easier, I had to give you that, but if only someone took their time, they could read you like an open book. And, having no other books to read, I'd become an expert in reading between the smudged and tightly scribbled lines that life had written on your soul.

"If you don't keep your annoying presence to the minimum, I promise you I will ban all the mirrors in the land," you threatened on the day you decided to let me see you again. "Do you understand?"

You were queen and being around you was a privilege, you said. You decided when it was permitted. You would not have some insolent fool look at you whenever he wanted.

I bowed my head apologizing for insulting you and making you angry. Of course, you never accepted my apology. Probably because I wasn't apologizing for the right thing but you would've never pointed that out.

My presence might have annoyed you at first but right now it was making you extremely nervous.

I used to think it was because all your life you had been under your mother's control and you couldn't stand the thought of someone constantly keeping an eye on you like that.

But the more I knew you, the more I realized what frightened you the most was the idea that someone might prove you wrong about yourself. You had worked so hard to make people fear your power that somewhere along the way you had forgotten why felt the way you did. You convinced yourself all you wanted was power, confusing it for a happy ending.

I think what pained you most in all this was that Snow White would never have to fight to be queen one day the way you did. She would never have to do anything to get her way.

Your mother had dedicated her life to making you someone you had no intention of becoming. No one had ever asked you what you wanted. All your life, you'd never had a choice.

"So why bother now?" You asked yourself on those rare occasions you forgot I was listening, although to tell you the truth I was always listening, especially when you were not speaking. I'd watched you walk down the same path, not ever stopping for even a moment to think if maybe you wanted to turn at the next crossroads. First it was your mother that led you on her chain, and later came Rumpelstiltskin, although he was commanding you like a marionette with his invisible strings.

You liked to think you were in charge of your own ship but, if you were, would you have let it sink like that?

We always have a choice – you renounced yours almost out of habit: having been taught someone else knew what was best for you, you willingly gave into yet another scheme, fulfilling someone else's ambition.

You say it was _them _who called you the _Evil_ Queen. But did you ever do anything to stop them?

I was your prisoner. And in that my love for you was not very different from any other love. It was the promise of seeing you that kept the feeling alive, in spite of everything you'd done, in spite of knowing you laughed at my weakness.

I could never touch you so I worshipped your image. And love's just that – an image that we paint from dreams – that we pretend are memories - with the colors of our imagination

Despite everything I tried to make you see, the only image of yourself that you thought you could love was made up of nothing but your nightmares and regrets.


End file.
